Paul Field is living the American dream. The youthful British editor of the National Enquirer has traded his three-storey, period house in London's Stoke Newington for a spectacular loft apartment in New York's SoHo.

Field, 33, has served as a senior executive at several Fleet Street tabloids, but left for America a year ago with his wife and young child, the latest in a long line of British hacks to land a big job in the US media.

He has been hired to shake up the Enquirer, a title with a reputation that transcends national borders and speaks to an audience far beyond the supermarket checkouts where most copies are sold.

The title's owner, American Media, wants to restore it to its 1970s glory days, when it regularly sold 4 million copies and broke dozens of world exclusives.

That success was built largely on the back of English journalists, a tradition which has been revived by American Media CEO David Pecker. Field was headhunted for the job, leaving the Sun to join, ostensibly as vice-president across the group's titles, but working on an Enquirer re-launch 'under the radar' from day one.

Bespectacled and smartly dressed in a grey suit and striped shirt, Field picks at his mushroom risotto in Soho House, venue of choice for the Englishman abroad. 'You hear a lot of English accents in here,' he says, although he doesn't venture here often himself. He's a member, but mainly so his daughter can use the pool in the summer. He's not one for socialising with journalists and he doesn't particularly like giving interviews, subscribing to the Daily Mail's Paul Dacre school of thought: the journalism - and the circulation figures - should do the talking. If there is some reticence about agreeing to talk on the record, the figures may go some way to explaining it. Six months after overseeing a relaunch, circulation, which had hovered between 900,000 and 1.1 million, is at just over 1 million, although it is still early days. Field recruited 22 British journalists after closing the old Florida-based office, sacking most of the journalists and moving the head office to New York. Their replacements were lured across the water by the promise of a New York adventure and the chance to be in at the start of the weekly's new direction.

It takes time for a new team to bed down, but Field is pleased that most are throwing themselves into the job. 'One reporter decided to buy a fridge magnet from every place she worked at, and she's already got about 13 stuck on the door,' he says. Another, who is about to return to the UK to get married, moved into a tiny apartment in SoHo. 'She hasn't used the kitchen once in six months,' Field says. 'I'm turning them all into students again.'

The arrival of a new wave of young, British journalists has not been a cause for celebration among their American counterparts, not least because of the savage way in which the Florida workforce lost their jobs. 'There is a sense that all these Brits have come over, but they're not really making much of an impact,' says one American showbiz hack. Field won't say it, but he knows what another British journalists readily concede: 'They would love to see us fail.'

So too would Martin Smith, managing editor of Richard Desmond's new US edition of OK! Magazine, who spent a few months at American Media last year. Desmond was in the US last month for the official launch of the title, which has got off to a slow start, but Field says that doesn't matter: 'My chief exec asked me if we should be worried about Desmond and I said "Yes. Absolutely".' Desmond has pledged to spend £100 million to buy success, although People, the market leader with more than 3 million readers, remains his prime target. American Media has the money to match; industry sources estimate the Enquirer makes about £40m-£50m a year. But whether it has the will to promote the title remains a moot point. The promised promotional budget does not seem to have materialised and there are some internal gripes about lack of cash. Field says you hear similar complaints in any newsroom, although he later alludes to 'fighting battles with the bosses upstairs' in a conversation about his management style.

There is a consensus here that there are just too many celebrity titles, a claim that must bring a wry smile to the lips of anyone who has witnessed the boom back home. 'There are around 10 million combined sales a week in a country of 300 million people,' Field points out. With no national tabloid titles in the Sun or News of the World tradition, publications such as the Enquirer are bought by a huge audience advertisers are keen to reach. And there is potential to increase sales overseas too. The magazine sells around 100,000 copies a week in the UK, for example, where it is still publishing in the old format.

Field speaks highly of American journalists - the LA bureau has remained almost unchanged since he arrived - saying they are more pro-active, work contacts well and rarely have to be spoon-fed stories. But he has had to make some big adjustments too. Chief among them is adapting to the way the title is distributed, which means it hits newsstands at different times. The sheer size of the country means it goes on sale on Thursday in some big cities, but may not reach more remote regions until Monday. And although the majority of sales - some 70-80 per cent - are 'pre-weekend', reaching supermarkets in time for the big weekend shop, the staggered distribution causes huge headaches for a title that feeds off exclusives. Keeping hold of an exclusive is well-nigh impossible. First, because the omnipotent Hollywood agents often chose to leak Enquirer stories to 'friendly' rival titles. Second, because the huge number of celebrity TV shows in the US means scoops are broadcast across the nation before the title even goes on sale in many places. 'By the time readers see the story they are bored of it. The secret is to "second day" it, to take it on or think of a line that they won't nick because it's too [scurrilous],' Field says.

There are some big scoops in the pipeline, and Field clearly views the Enquirer as a major stepping stone to editing a national back home. He was a journalist before he even left school, working at several titles in his native Ipswich before joining the Mirror Group Newspapers graduate trainee scheme straight after Hull University. 'I've never had a plan,' he insists, 'but I'll stay for long enough to make a success of it.' He agrees that there's something romantic about a group of British journalists leaving their London lives behind to take on New York - as long as the reality lives up to the hype. His deputy editor resigned late last week to return to News International, so for some the dream can turn sour. 'It is a good story; we're just trying to ensure a happy ending,' he smiles.